Velten and musical mood induction procedures: A comparison with accessibility of thought associations

Abstract

This study aims at testing for the effectivity of Velten MIP and Musical MIP and comparing both in a direct way both at a group level and individually using (substantial) mood changes. Moreover, effects of mood changes on changes in thought association judgements are tested (accessibility of cognitions). One-hundred-and-eighty-four students of two departments of a College for Higher Vocational Education, at random assigned to two experiments (Velten MIP and Musical MIP, n = 92 for each experiment) participated in the study, held at the college. In each experiment four mood induction condition groups were employed: anxious, depressive, elated or neutral. In each condition mood induction (the independent variable) was preceded and followed by a thought association task, i.e. reactions of Ss in addition to allegedly neutral stimulus words of two word lists: List A and List B. Of each condition, approximately half of the Ss (11 or 12) received the word lists in the order A-B, the other half receiving the word lists in reverse order. Thought association tasks and MIP were interspersed by mood ratings, using Visual Analogue Scales (VASs: anxious, depressive, elated and hostile). At the end of the experiment, Ss judged their thought associations for feeling tone (anxious, depressive, elated and hostile) using VAS-like rating scales. The difference between feeling tone judgements of the second and first thought association tasks operated as the dependent variable. As for the effectivity of mood manipulation, results partially supported the hypothesized superiority of Musical MIP as against the Velten MIP, i.e. the former—both at the group and at an individual level—presenting stronger results; however, a direct comparison between two MIPs failed to substantiate this. Sex was shown to play a major role in inducing mood, namely more women than men were susceptible to mood influences. Impact of personality characteristics on mood changes, on the other hand, was generally absent. Personality factors were also shown hardly to have influenced changes of judgement of feeling tones in addition to thought associations. In this context presentation of word lists (A-B or B-A) were shown to be the pertinent factor, due to stimulus words' characteristics. Thus, contrary to what was presumed, mood changes filled a negligible part. Discussion of results leads one to conclude that one needs different stimulus words, i.e. words that lack fixed connotations that preclude any mood influence surviving. Suggestions are made for developing future research designed to shed some more light on the emotion-cognition issue, which topic is believed to be of outstanding relevance for grounding scientifically intervention procedures which are in use in clinical practice.